BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C.D. YONGE

LIFE OF THALES

I.
THALES, then, as Herodotus and Duris and Democritus say, was the son of Examyes and Cleobulina; of the family of
the Thelidae, who are Phoenicians by descent, among the most noble of all the
descendants of Cadmus and Agenor, as Plato testifies. And he was the first man
to whom the name of Wise was given, when Damasias was Archon at Athens, in whose
time also the seven wise men had that title given to them, as Demetrius
Phalereus records in his Catalogue of the Archons. He was enrolled as a citizen
at Miletus when he came thither with Neleus, who had been banished from
Phoenicia; but a more common statement is that he was a native Milesian, of
noble extraction.

II.
After having been immersed in
state affairs he applied himself to speculations in natural philosophy; though,
as some people state, he left no writings behind him. For the book on Naval
Astronomy, which is attributed to him is said in reality to be the work of Phocus
the Samian. But Callimachus was aware that he was the discoverer of the Lesser
Bear; for in his Iambics he speaks of him thus:

And, he, 'tis said, did first compute the stars
Which beam in Charles's wain, and guide the bark
Of the Phoenician sailor o'er the sea.

According to others he wrote two books, and no more, about the
solstice and the equinox; thinking that everything else was easily to be
comprehended. According to other statements, he is said to have been the first
who studied astronomy, and who foretold the eclipses and motions of the sun, as
Eudemus relates in his history of the discoveries made in astronomy; on which
account Xenophanes and Herodotus praise him greatly; and Heraclitus and
Democritus confirm this statement.

III. Some again (one of whom is
Choerilus the poet) say that he was the first person who affirmed that the souls
of men were immortal; and he was the first person, too, who discovered the path
of the sun from one end of the ecliptic to the other; and who, as one account
tells us, defined the magnitude of the sun as being seven hundred and twenty
times as great as that of the moon. He was also the first person who called the
last day of the month the thirtieth. And likewise the first to converse about
natural philosophy, as some say. But Aristotle and Hippias say that he
attributed souls also to lifeless things, forming his conjecture from the nature
of the magnet, and of amber. And Pamphila relates that he, having learnt
geometry from the Egyptians, was the first person to describe a right-angled
triangle in a circle, and that he sacrificed an ox in honour of his discovery.
But others, among whom is Apollodorus the calculator, say that it was Pythagoras
who made this discovery. It was Thales also who carried to their greatest point
of advancement the discoveries which Callimachus in his iambics says were first
made by Euphorbus the Phrygian, such as those of the scalene angle, and of the
triangle, and of other things which relate to investigations about lines. He
seems also to have been a man of the greatest wisdom in political matters. For
when Croesus sent to the Milesians to invite them to an alliance, he prevented
them from agreeing to it, which step of his, as Cyrus got the victory, proved
the salvation of the city. But Clytus relates, as Heraclides assures us, that he
was attached to a solitary and recluse life.

IV. Some assert that he was
married, and that he had a son named Cybisthus; others, on the contrary, say that
he never had a wife, but that he adopted the son of his sister; and that once
being asked why he did not himself become a father, he answered, that it was
because he was fond of children. They say, too, that when his mother exhorted
him to marry, he said, "No, by Jove, it is not yet time." And afterwards, when
he was past his youth, and she was again pressing him earnestly, he said, "It is
no longer time."

V. Hieronymus, of Rhodes, also
tells us, in the second book of his Miscellaneous Memoranda, that when he was
desirous to show that it was easy to get rich, he, foreseeing that there would
be a great crop of olives, took some large plantations of olive trees, and so
made a great deal of money.

VI. He asserted water to be the
principle of all things, and that the world had life, and was full of daemons:
they say, too, that he was the original definer of the seasons of the year, and
that it was he who divided the year into three hundred and sixty-five days. And
he never had any teacher except during the time that he went to Egypt, and
associated with the priests. Hieronymus also says that he measured the Pyramids:
watching their shadow, and calculating when they were of the same size as that
was. He lived with Thrasybulus the tyrant of Miletus, as we are informed by Minyas.

VII. Now it is known to every one
what happened with respect to the tripod that was found by the fishermen and
sent to the wise men by the people of the Milesians, For they say that some
Ionian youths bought a cast of their nets from some Milesian fishermen. And when
the tripod was drawn up in the net there was a dispute about it; until the
Milesians sent to Delphi: and the God gave them the following answer:

You ask about the tripod, to whom you shall present it;
'Tis for the wisest, I reply, that fortune surely meant it.

Accordingly they gave it to Thales, and he gave it to someone, who
again handed it over to another, till it came to Solon. But he said that it was
the God himself who was the first in wisdom; and so he sent it to Delphi. But
Callimachus gives a different account of this in his Iambic taking the tradition
which he mentions from Leander the Milesian; for he says that a certain Arcadian
of the name of Bathycles, when dying, left a goblet behind him with an injunction
that it should be given to the first of the wise men. And it was given to
Thales, and went the whole circle till it came back to Thales, on which he sent
it to Apollo Didymaeus, adding (according to Callimachus,) the following distich:

Thales, who's twice received me as a prize,
Gives me to him who rules the race of Neleus.

And the prose inscription runs thus:

Thales the son of Examyas, a Milesian, offers this to Apollo
Didymaeus, having twice received it from the Greeks as the reward for virtue.

And the name of the son of Bathycles who carved the goblet about from one to
the other, was Thyrion, as Eleusis tells us in his History of Achilles. And
Alexander the Myndian agrees with him in the ninth book of his Traditions. But
Eudoxus of Cnidos, and Euanthes of Miletus, say that one of the friends of
Croesus received from the king a golden goblet, for the purpose of giving it to
the wisest of the Greeks; and that he gave it to Thales, and that it came round
to Chilon, and that he inquired of the God at Delphi who was wiser than himself;
and that the God replied, Myson, whom we shall mention hereafter. (He is the man
whom Eudoxus places among the seven wise men instead of Cleobulus ; but Plato
inserts his name instead of Periander.) The God accordingly made this reply
concerning him:

I say that Myson the Aetoean sage,The citizen of Chen, is wiser far
In his deep mind than you.

The person who went to the temple to ask the question was
Anacharsis ; but again Daimachus the Platonic philosopher, and Clearchus, state
that the goblet was sent by Croesus to Pittacus, and so was carried round to the
different men. But Andron, in his book called The Tripod, says that the
Argives offered the tripod as a prize for excellence to the wisest of the
Greeks; and that Aristodemus, a Spartan, was judged to deserve it, but that he
yielded the palm to Chilon; and Alcaeus mentions Aristodemus in these lines:

And so they say Aristodemus onceUttered a truthful speech in noble Sparta:
'Tis money makes the man; and he who's none,
Is counted neither good nor honourable.

But some say that a vessel fully loaded was sent by Periander to
Thrasybulus the tyrant of the Milesians; and that as the ship was wrecked in the
sea, near the island of Cos, this tripod was afterwards found by some fishermen.
Phanodicus says that it was found in the sea near Athens, and so brought into
the city; and then, after an assembly had been held to decide on the disposal,
it was sent to Bias—and the reason why we will mention in our account of Bias.
Others say that this goblet had been made by Vulcan and presented by the Gods to
Pelops, on his marriage; and that subsequently it came into the possession of
Menelaus, and was taken away by Paris when he carried off Helen, and was thrown
into the sea near Cos by her, as she said that it would become a cause of
battle. And after some time, some of the citizens of Lebedos having bought a
net, this tripod was brought up in it; and as they quarrelled with the fishermen
about it, they went to Cos; and not being able to get the matter settled there,
they laid it before the Milesians, as Miletus was their metropolis; and they
sent ambassadors, who were treated with neglect, on which account they made war
on the Coans; and after each side had met with many revolutions of fortune, an
oracle directed that the tripod should be given to the wisest; and then both
parties agreed that it belonged to Thales: and he, after it had gone the circuit
of all the wise men, presented it to the Didymaean Apollo. Now, the assignation
of the oracle was given to the Coans in the following words:

The war between the brave Ionian raceAnd the proud Meropes will never cease,
Till the rich golden tripod which the God,
Its maker, cast beneath the briny waves,
Is from your city sent, and justly given
To that wise being who knows all present things,
And all that's past, and all that is to come.

And the reply given to the Milesians was

You ask about the tripod

and so on, as I have related it before. And now we have said
enough on this subject.

But Hermippus, in his Lives, refers to Thales what has been by some people
reported of Socrates; for he recites that he used to say that he thanked fortune
for three things: first of all, that he had been born a man and not a beast;
secondly, that he was a man and not a woman; and thirdly, that he was a Greek
and not a barbarian.

VIII. It is said that once he was
led out of his house by an old woman for the purpose of observing the stars, and
he fell into a ditch and bewailed himself, on which the old woman said to
him—"Do you, O Thales, who cannot see what is under your feet, think that you
shall understand what is in heaven?" Timon also knew that he was an astronomer,
and in his Silli he praises him, saying:

Like Thales, wisest of the seven sages,That great astronomer.

And Lobon, of Argos, says, that which was written by him extends
to about two hundred verses; and that the following inscription is engraved upon his statue:

Miletus, fairest of Ionian cities,
Gave birth to Thales, great astronomer,
Wisest of mortals in all kinds of knowledge.

It is not many words that real wisdom proves;Breathe rather
one wise thought,Select one worthy object,So shall you best the
endless prate of silly men reprove.—

And the following are quoted as sayings of his: "God is the most
ancient of all things, for he had no birth: the world is the most beautiful of
things, for it is the work of God: place is the greatest of things, for it
contains all things: intellect is the swiftest of things, for it runs through
everything: necessity is the strongest of things, for it rules everything: time
is the wisest of things, for it finds out everything."

He said also that there was no difference between life and death. "Why,
then," said some one to him, "do not you die?" "Because," said he, "it does make
no difference." A man asked him which was made first, night or day, and he
replied "Night was made first by one day." Another man asked him whether a man
who did wrong, could escape the notice of the Gods. "No, not even if he thinks
wrong," said he. An adulterer inquired of him whether he should swear that he
had not committed adultery. "Perjury," said he, "is no worse than adultery."
When he was asked what was very difficult, he said, "To know one's self." And
what was easy, "To advise another." What was most pleasant? "To be successful."
To the question, "What is the divinity?" he replied "That which has neither
beginning nor end." When asked what hard thing he had seen, he said, "An old man
a tyrant." When the question was put to him how a man might most easily endure
misfortune, he said, "If he saw his enemies more unfortunate still." When asked
how men might live most virtuously and most justly, he said, "If we never do
ourselves what we blame in others." To the question, "Who was happy?" he made
answer. "He who is healthy in his body, easy in his circumstances, and
well-instructed as to his mind." He said that men ought to remember those
friends who were absent as well as those who were present, and not to care about
adorning their faces, but to be beautified by their studies. "Do not," said he,
"get rich by evil actions, and let not any one ever be able to reproach you with
speaking against those who partake of your friendship. All the assistance that
you give to your parents, the same you have a right to expect from your
children." He said that the reason of the Nile overflowing, was, that its
streams were beaten back by the Etesian winds blowing in a contrary
direction.

X. Apollodorus, in his
Chronicles, says, that Thales was born in the first year of the thirty-fifth
Olympiad; and he died at the age of seventy-eight years, or according to the
statement of Sosicrates, at the age of ninety; for he died in the fifty-eighth
Olympiad, having lived in the time of Croesus, to whom he promised that he would
enable him to pass the Halys without a bridge, by turning the course of the
river.

XI. There have also been other
men of the name of Thales, as Demetrius of Magnesia says, in his Treatise on
People and Things of the Same Name; of whom five are particularly mentioned, an
orator of Calatia of a very affected style of eloquence; a painter of Sicyon, a
great man; the third was one who lived in very ancient times, in the age of
Homer and Hesiod and Lycurgus ; the fourth is a man who is mentioned by Duris in
his work On Painting; the fifth is a more modern person, of no great reputation,
who is mentioned by Dionysius in his Criticisms.

XII. But this wise Thales died
while present as a spectator at a gymnastic contest, being worn out with heat
and thirst and weakness, for he was very old, and the following inscription was
placed on his tomb:

You see this tomb is small—but recollect,
The fame of Thales reaches to the skies.

I have also myself composed this epigram on him in the first book
of my epigrams or poems in various metres:

O mighty sun our wisest Thales sat
Spectator of the games, when you did seize upon him;
But you were right to take him near yourself,
Now that his aged sight could scarcely reach to heaven.

XIII. The apophthegm, "know
yourself," is his; though Antisthenes in his Successions, says that it belongs
to Phemonoe, but that Chilon appropriated it as his own.

XIV. Now concerning the seven,
(for it is well here to speak of them all together,) the following traditions
are handed down. Damon the Cyrenaean, who wrote about the philosophers,
reproaches them all, but most especially the seven. And Anaximenes says, that
they all applied themselves to poetry. But Dicaearchus says, that they were
neither wise men nor philosophers, but merely shrewd men, who had studied
legislation. And Archetimus, the Syracusian, wrote an account of their having a
meeting at the palace of Cypselus, at which he says that he himself was present.
Ephorus says that they all except Thales met at the court of Croesus. And some
say that they also met at the Pandionium,(1) and at
Corinth, and at Delphi. There is a good deal of disagreement between different
writers with respect to their apophthegms, as the same one is attributed by them
to various authors. For instance there is the epigram:

Chilon, the Spartan sage, this sentence said:Seek no
excess—all timely things are good

There is also a difference of opinion with respect to their
number. Leander inserts in the number instead of Cleobulus and Myson, Leophantus
Gorsias, a native of either Lebedos or Ephesus; and Epimenides, the Cretan;
Plato, in his Protagoras, reckons Myson among them instead of Periander. And
Ephorus mentions Anacharsis in the place of Myson; some also add Pythagoras to
the number. Dicaearchus speaks of four, as universally agreed upon, Thales,
Bias, Pittacus, and Solon; and then enumerates six more, of whom we are to
select three, namely, Aristodemus, Pamphilus, Chilon the Lacedaemonian,
Cleobulus, Anacharsis, and Periander. Some add Acusilaus of Argos, the son of
Cabas, or Scabras. But Hermippus, in his Treatise on the Wise Men says that
there were altogether seventeen, out of whom different authors selected different
individuals to make up the seven. These seventeen were Solon, Thales, Pittacus,
Bias, Chilon, Myson, Cleobulus, Periander, Anacharsis, Acusilaus, Epimenides,
Leophantus, Pherecydes, Aristodemus, Pythagoras, Lasus the son of Charmantides,
or Sisymbrinus, or as Aristoxenus calls him the son of Chabrinus, a citizen of
Hermione, and Anaxagoras. But Hippobotus in his Description of the Philosophers
enumerates among them Orpheus, Linus, Solon, Periander, Anacharsis, Cleobulus,
Myson, Thales, Bias, Pittacus, Epicharmus, and Pythagoras.

XV. The following letters are
preserved as having been written by Thales:

THALES TO PHERECYDES.

I hear that you are disposed, as no other Ionian has been, to
discourse to the Greeks about divine things, and perhaps it will be wiser of
you to reserve for your own friends what you write rather than to entrust it
to any chance people, without any advantage. If therefore it is agreeable to
you, I should be glad to become a pupil of yours as to the matters about which
you write; and if you invite me I will come to you to Syros; for Solon the
Athenian and I must be out of our senses if we sailed to Crete to investigate
the history of that country, and to Egypt for the purpose of conferring with
the priests and astronomers who are to be found there, and yet are unwilling
to make a voyage to you; for Solon will come too, if you will give him leave,
for as you are fond of your present habitation you are not likely to come to
Ionia, nor are you desirous of seeing strangers; but you rather, as I hope,
devote yourself wholly to the occupation of writing. We, on the other hand,
who write nothing, travel over all Greece and Asia

THALES TO SOLON.

XVI. If you should
leave Athens it appears to me that you would find a home at Miletus among the
colonists of Athens more suitably than anywhere else, for here there are no
annoyances of any kind. And if you are indignant because we Milesians are
governed by a tyrant, (for you yourself hate all despotic rulers), still at
all events you will find it pleasant to live with us for your companions. Bias
has also written to invite you to Priene, and if you prefer taking up your
abode in the city of the Prieneans, then we ourselves will come thither and
settle near you.

1. This was the temple of the national diety of the Ionians,
Neptune Heliconius, on Mount Mycale."-Vide Smith, Dict. Gr. and Rom.
Antiq.

The Bohn original has "Euxamius and Cleobule".

Scanned and edited for Peithô's Web from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, by
Diogenes Laertius, Literally translated by C.D. Yonge. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1853. Footnotes have been
converted to endnotes. Some, but not all, of Yonge's spellings of ancient names have been updated.

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